


Bareback

by Sineala



Series: Breaker of Horses [2]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Centaurs, First Time, Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4019038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "Breaker of Horses," our heroes finally have some time alone together. But there are a few things they need to figure out about intimacy first, in more ways than just the physical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bareback

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is really centaur/human porn. Yes, really. No, I'm not sorry.
> 
> This is dedicated to every single one of you who told me you'd read centaur/human porn if I wrote some. You know who you are. 
> 
> I think maybe I did more research for this than the actual RBB story.
> 
> This is probably originally [halotolerant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant)'s fault. In addition to thanking everyone who betaed my RBB and was willing to take a look at this, I would also like to thank [savvierthanu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/savvierthanu) for pointing me toward [Hotblood!](http://hotbloodcomic.com), a m/m webcomic about a sleazy steel magnate and his centaur ex-Confederate secretary, who are in love in the Wild West. It was a valuable source of research and also it's excellent. Possibly it is also relevant to your interests, assuming you are here to read about centaurs and humans in love.

The journey had been begun well. There had not been much in the way of excitement on the road; Avizina suspected that they themselves -- a man riding a centaur -- were the most exciting thing upon it, for more than a few farmers gawked at them. Children, hanging off the backs of carts and wagons, pointed and shouted as they passed. At one point an entire cavalry wing came loping by; the decurion in the front saluted Stephanos, who lifted a fist in response.

At about the sixth hour, Stephanos slowed and moved to the edge of the road, and Avizina was grateful. Even though Stephanos was easy to sit, with a fluid gait that left Avizina nothing to do but hold on, Avizina had not ridden extensively in years and his muscles were already feeling the unaccustomed strain.

"Are you hungry?" Stephanos asked, over his shoulder. "I thought we might rest and eat."

Avizina nodded and was surprised, now that he thought about it, to feel hunger gnawing at his belly; he had been so intent upon the brilliance of the day, on his glorious new happiness with Stephanos, that he had not paid much of any attention to his body's needs. "That would be well with me."

The land on either side of the road was verdant, forested; the cleared farmland had given way to trees an hour into the journey. Stephanos walked to the side of the road and stepped neatly over the edge-stones, picking up each hoof gracefully in turn, and then continuing the same careful pace down the much bumpier slope into the forest.

Avizina blinked. "No taberna, eh?"

"We still have food," Stephanos said, for indeed there was a little pack just behind Avizina. "And besides, I think they would not let me in the door. Careful now."

Avizina obligingly held fast, and Stephanos hopped over a little branch, an easy jump. The pack-horse followed.

"I thought it would be more difficult for you to be ridden," Avizina said; Stephanos was better than the best horse he had sat. "You cannot have had much practice."

Stephanos sighed, and his body went tense under Avizina in a way that had nothing to do with jumping. "You are not my first in that regard," he said, voice laced with sorrow. "But that is a story for another day, I think."

"As you say."

He did not want to push Stephanos about a thing that was surely sad, and so he fell silent as Stephanos wended his way through the forest until they came to a little clearing by a stream, and there they stopped. It was a pretty little place, grassy, and the ground looked soft enough to be a balm to Avizina's aching limbs.

"Here," Stephanos said. "I think this will do well."

Avizina swung his leg over and slid off, bouncing onto the springy grass, and he had to agree that it was a good resting place, likely better than any flea-bitten pallet at an inn -- and they would probably have tried to give Stephanos the stables. After tying the pack-horse down at the clearing's far edge, he set immediately to removing the pack from Stephanos' back, and when he had, Stephanos sighed in relief.

"Better?"

"Immeasurably," Stephanos said, with a smile. "Would you mind unbraiding my tail?"

He did not mind, not in the slightest.

They had the morning's bread, a little clay jar of oil for it, and a water-cup; the water from the stream was cool and fresh, and when Avizina came back from filling the cup again for Stephanos he saw that Stephanos had already knelt down, long golden legs folded under himself, and he was making inroads into the bread.

"Trade you bread for water?" Avizina asked.

He sat next to Stephanos -- they were more of a height now, when they were both sitting, but Stephanos was still at least half a head taller -- and held out the cup; Stephanos took it from him and passed him the other half of the loaf and the oil. Their fingers brushed, and then Avizina realized he no longer had to content himself with stolen touches. He could touch Stephanos as much as he liked, as much as they wanted; no one was here to stop them, or even to see them. Thus he set the bread and oil down and instead wrapped his fingers around Stephanos' hand, bringing it to his lips, as he had before.

"Oh," Stephanos breathed, a small fragile sound, a sound of wonder, shaking as he exhaled. He took another slow breath. He set the cup down. "But I thought you were hungry?"

"I won't starve," Avizina murmured, and he kissed Stephanos' fingers once, twice, thrice. "And I find that I am hungry for things other than food, as well."

It was easy, so very easy, to press closer, to kneel up a little so that their heads were finally level -- and then to put his fingers to Stephanos' jaw, turn his head, and kiss him. Stephanos' mouth was warm and sweet against his, and Stephanos' tongue licked tentatively at Avizina's lips, sending ripples of heat down his spine to pool in his belly. Everything was so hot, and he could feel the warmth of Stephanos' body through the thin summer-weight tunic that Stephanos wore; it was very different than when he had been wearing unyielding armor. Stephanos moaned against his mouth, and Avizina could feel it all along his body, the fire in him almost overwhelming. He wanted, O immortal gods, he wanted Stephanos so much. He wanted to bring him pleasure, to coax these noises out of him, to run his hands all over him with no one to say that he should not. He wanted to press up against him, to be together however they could.

Stephanos was breathing hard, eyes gone wide and dark in the bright sunlight when Avizina finally drew his head away.

"Enjoying the kissing, beautiful one?" It was a vain thing for Avizina to ask, but there had been more than a touch of vanity in him, once; he had not had the luxury for it again until today. And, well, Stephanos was beautiful, and he wanted to tell him so -- now, and as often as possible.

The smile Stephanos favored him with was wide and dazed, almost disbelieving. "It's wonderful."

Avizina swallowed hard. He felt unaccountably nervous asking; with everyone else he had been with, moving onto things more intimate than kissing was almost a matter of rote. There were well-worn phrases, gestures, ways to move his hands just so as a suggestion. But with Stephanos there were no rules; there was nothing already laid down between them. It was a thing they had to work out for themselves, all of it, and what if Stephanos said it was too soon? What if Stephanos did not want him, truly? It would be worse to have to hear him say it plainly. But it was the only way he had to find these things out.

He stroked at the strong line of Stephanos' stubbled jaw with his thumb, and Stephanos shuddered, his breath coming out of him in almost a gasp, and the sound seemed to echo back through Avizina and stoke the already-swelling fires within him.

"I do not want to presume," Avizina began, and he wondered if Stephanos could hear the hope and desire in his voice, "but might you be interested in something more than just kissing?"

But he must have said something wrong after all, because Stephanos' face twisted into misery. Hastily, Avizina dropped his hand away.

"Stephanos?" he ventured. "Is it too soon? I am sorry, for I did not mean to rush you--"

Stephanos' eyes were shut. His voice was low. "The kissing is enough, and that is kind of you. There is no need to pretend that you might want more."

How had his life been, for him to assume that Avizina did not speak the truth? What had his lovers done to him? Avizina wanted to lash out at anyone, at everyone who had ever hurt him.

"Pretend?" Avizina echoed, his voice rising in incredulity. "You think I am pretending? You think I am being kind?"

When Stephanos opened his eyes again, his gaze was wary, wide-eyed. "Avizina, I am half a horse." The words were harsh, bleak, as if he thought this an ill thing, an insurmountable obstacle. "You know this. As I said, it is a kind offer, but I would not want to put you in the position of performing... repellant tasks... for my sake."

As if anything about him could be repellant, Avizina thought hotly.

"You are not half a horse," he said, a little more tartly than he meant to. "You are not half of anything. You are one being. Or do you think when I tell you that you are beautiful, that I mean only half of you?"

"Why not?" Stephanos snapped back. "It's what anyone else would mean!" His hand lay curled over one of his forelegs, pale skin against golden hide, and even in the midst of the anger, even so, Avizina was struck by how right he looked, as if he had always been meant to be this way, favored by the gods. Stephanos stopped, uncurled his hand, and took a few breaths. "I am sorry," he said, quietly. "I did not mean-- it is only that it is always one or the other, in my experience."

Avizina kept his voice easy, gentle. "Is it?"

Stephanos nodded. "There have been several people, over the years, who I think would have liked me had I been only a man. There were a few who went so far as to kiss me, usually when they were in their cups and could deny it in the morning, but would never have thought--" He broke off. "I could see the disgust on their faces, when they considered what the rest of a relationship would entail." He sighed. "And then there were the others, with the opposite view. Let us just say that men sometimes join the cavalry for less than noble reasons, and leave it at that."

"Oh." Understanding dawned upon him. Avizina took a deep breath and then reached out, fitting his hand lengthwise over Stephanos', so that his fingertips just brushed the light fur of his leg. "Always?"

"Always." Stephanos bit his lip. "And I want-- I care for you so much, that I want so badly to believe that you could mean it, but... it is a difficult thing, to lay this burden down. It is my doing, not yours."

Avizina brushed his fingers lightly along the grain of the fur; it seemed to him that Stephanos trembled at the touch.

"So," Avizina breathed, "what if I were to show you how much I meant it?"

The color was high in Stephanos' cheeks. "I-- yes--" he stammered. "I would... I would like that, but I-- I don't know how. I don't even know what we can do."

"Well," he ventured, "can we not do what you have done with others?"

Stephanos' mouth twisted, a wry smile. "There have been no others."

Avizina stared. "What, none?"

Stephanos shrugged. "Before I was like... this... I was sickly, and sometimes I was too ill to be concerned with such things, and the rest of the time no one wanted me. Then I was in this body, and then no one truly wanted me either, as I have said. I did not think it was right to demand anything of the camp-followers, either, so I-- I have not."

"You're nearly two centuries old," Avizina said, in flat disbelief, "and you have never-- really? Next I suppose you will tell me that this entire realm of pleasure is completely foreign to you." It was not a thing he thought had been especially appealing to him before, as an abstract idea, to show the pleasures of the flesh to one who was new to it, but with Stephanos the idea suddenly took on an undeniable attraction, and the fantasy of it settled within him, the fires flaring up again.

"I-- no," Stephanos admitted, and his face flushed again. "I mean, certainly, when I could... reach, yes, there was that. But now it is a humiliating matter of rubbing up against things, and I will not lie and say I have never done that, when my needs became too great to ignore, but--"

"You don't like that it has to be like that," Avizina finished, and Stephanos nodded again.

"So I have no answers," Stephanos said, still looking hot with embarrassment; Avizina hated to see him so uncomfortable.

"Shh," he said, and he stroked Stephanos' hand. "We will make our own answers together."

"How?"

Avizina gave him his best smile. "First," he said, "I think I am wearing too much for the rest of this endeavor. You are welcome to join me, if you like."

And so he stood and unbuckled his belt, and yanked the tunic off over his head, not caring much for finesse. When he had undone the short braccae that riders wore and kicked those off, he looked up to find that Stephanos had managed his own tunic but not the blanket; he was nonetheless rendered speechless at the sight of him, perfect muscle shading down into fur at his hips. Stephanos, for his part, was staring wide-eyed at him.

"What?" Avizina asked, and he could feel himself grinning. "You have seen me before. I know you were looking, when we met."

Stephanos snorted and looked away; he was perhaps, Avizina thought, a little shy. "Can you help with the blanket?"

Oh. "Of course."

He unfastened the blanket and slid it off Stephanos, marveling again at the wondrous shade of his coat, more golden than any aureus coin, so warm under his hands; he marveled at the long powerful muscles of him. Stephanos shivered and shuddered and Avizina just wanted to touch him and keep touching him, to slide his hands all over him, to press up against him and be surrounded and protected by the huge bulk of him, to bring him pleasure.

He had his hands at Stephanos' waist, at the strange and fascinating demarcation of him, where skin turned to hide.

"Do you think you might kiss me again?" Stephanos' voice had gone low and eager, and now it was Avizina who shivered at the sound of it, at Stephanos' breath across his ear.

So Avizina leaned up and kissed him again. It was different now that they were both naked -- both different than it had been before, and different from the rest of Avizina's experience. Stephanos was pressed close against him as they kissed, pressed skin-to-skin at the chest, but Avizina had a leg over one of Stephanos' forelegs; the hide was softer than he had expected against the sensitive flesh of his thighs. Stephanos' tongue slid into his mouth -- he was quick to pick up exactly how Avizina liked it -- and it felt as if everything in him melted, wax to a flame, as Stephanos licked into his mouth. He was hard already, achingly hard, and it would have been so easy to rub up against Stephanos, to spend himself across his warm hide -- but he owed Stephanos a better experience than that. Stephanos' desires came first.

He pulled back before he gave in to the need to rut up against Stephanos' leg, and Stephanos looked down at him, concerned.

"Is there-- have I done it wrong?"

Avizina laughed; he was heady, drunk on desire. "Not wrong. Definitely right. So right that if you keep doing that I will not be good for much else, very quickly."

"Oh." Stephanos smiled back at him; he knew from the look on Stephanos' face how he must feel, for he knew that heady feeling of power well, the knowledge that he could cause his beloved to feel such great desire. "So what else should we do?"

"Well," Avizina drew out the word. "I wanted to touch you. All of you."

Another smile twitched at the corners of Stephanos' mouth. "I thought you might have enjoyed that, when you were grooming me."

Now it was Avizina's turn for his face to heat. "You noticed that?"

Stephanos nodded. "And I was hoping very much that I was not mistaken. I liked it as well." The words were a little shy. "I would... I would like more of that."

"We can do more of that."

He started with his hands where they were, at Stephanos' shoulders, then worked his fingers through Stephanos' hair, massaging his scalp a little just to hear the indulgent groan he wrung from him. He slid a palm between Stephanos' shoulder blades, down his spine, and then dragged his hand around Stephanos' ribs to the sculpted planes of his chest. Stephanos moaned, a little breathy noise, as if it was too good to hold back, and the sound flooded Avizina with mirrored desire.

Avizina pressed kisses to Stephanos' throat, down his chest, down his stomach, kissing the line of fur, feeling the muscles go tense and taut under his hands, under his lips. Stephanos went a little quieter when Avizina reached the hide; Avizina supposed there wasn't nearly as much sensation.

He ran two fingers down Stephanos' spine, down the hide and back up, mussing it and smoothing it again, as he tucked his head down between Stephanos' forelegs.

"You will have to tell me where else feels best, on the rest of you," he admitted. "I have reached the limits of my practical knowledge. I think we must be thorough about it now."

"So you are an engineer after all," Stephanos said, with another laugh, and then he groaned as Avizina laid a trail of kisses across the thin fur of his legs. "I-- my flanks, I think. And my belly." He sounded a little embarrassed again to admit to this.

Avizina liked to think he knew something about how to do this, and even though Stephanos was not, strictly speaking, human, surely the anticipation of the touch would itself be sweet. So he did not move right away, but rather lingered: he put his hands to Stephanos' furred shoulder, his withers, the sweep of his spine, the great shining expanse of his side, where his ribs heaved with deep uneven breaths as he gasped. It was everywhere he had wanted to touch him. It was the way he had wanted to touch him when he had groomed him. There was so much of him, and Avizina wanted to wrap himself around him and lose himself, and never let Stephanos go.

Stephanos' sides themselves were more sensitive than Avizina had thought; he stroked along his ribcage lightly, teasingly, and Stephanos gasped in surprise and flailed out, one of his front hooves scraping divots in the grass. The front half of him nearly fell to join the rest of him; he braced himself with a hand and was barely managing to hold that much of himself upright.

"Please don't kick me," Avizina said, laughing. "I have borne it from other lovers but I think it would hurt more from you."

Stephanos' eyes were unfocused, dark with pleasure. "I-- oh-- I am sorry, that just-- it is only that it feels so good."

"It will feel better," Avizina promised; he was full of a kind of grateful humility, an overwhelming awe that Stephanos would trust him this much, that he would let him do this.

Carefully, just as lightly, Avizina let his hand follow the line of him, the way the golden hair trailed into the whorl of Stephanos' flanks, where his powerful hindquarters met the rest of him. Stephanos gasped out something that might have been Avizina's name and arched up, pleasure shaking through him.

"You like that?" Avizina asked, and repeated the gesture, because he knew perfectly well that Stephanos did.

"Oh, yes," Stephanos breathed. "More, please, anything--"

Avizina considered this. "Can you -- hmm -- can you lie back and roll over? On your back?"

Stephanos nodded, breathless, and then stretched out, with a little hesitation and an unreadable look; the full length of him was extraordinarily long, and Avizina was aware once again of the strength he had, the power, and yet he was here letting Avizina touch him. And then he rolled to his back. The motion was a little ungainly, as his legs flailed in the air, but then he lay still. It was a vulnerable position, one Avizina had only seen him in on the day he surrendered in the Centauromachy in the games. Stephanos was one long sweep of skin and muscle and hide down his chest to his pale belly and then... well.

Dacia was known for its horses and Avizina's people had been no exception; of course he had seen stallions cover mares. It was not that he was unfamiliar with the basic anatomy, though Stephanos was a little different than stallions, more like a man in the shape and the ruddy-skinned coloring of him. As he stared at Stephanos' cock, fully aroused and out of its sheath, he realized that he might have been underestimating the possible size of him. He wanted him -- of course he wanted him -- but he would not lie and say there was not a little trepidation in the wanting, because Stephanos was far, far bigger than he could have imagined. What were they supposed to do?

He had laid his hand absently on Stephanos' belly, and abruptly he realized that Stephanos had gone still under him, still with the faintest tremor, and not in a good way. He looked back up along the length of him to find that Stephanos' face had gone taut, and he was worrying at his lip with his teeth.

"If you're going to run," Stephanos said, very quietly, "I wouldn't blame you." There was so much pain in the words that Avizina wanted to cry.

"Never," Avizina said, and he bent his head and pressed his mouth to Stephanos' warm belly, against a whorl of fur, kissing him softly. "It is only that I am trying to work out what we can do. You are... perhaps slightly more blessed by the gods than I had envisioned."

"We can't possibly," Stephanos began, and then gestured vaguely in a way Avizina supposed was meant to represent fucking.

"Not for the first time, no," Avizina allowed, and Stephanos just stared.

"What do you mean by that?"

Avizina let himself glance back down the length of Stephanos' body again and considered the logistics; it was as if it were an engineering problem he had to work out, only with infinitely nicer results. "We would need to be very slow and careful, and have much more oil than we have now, I think. And I would need practice stretching myself, and you would need practice being... patient. I think we could make that work someday. I would like that very much; would you?"

Stephanos' eyes had gone unfocused, and he drew a shaky breath. His skin was flushed now. "I-- oh, yes."

One of his hooves flailed in the air again, and even as he smiled the tension under Avizina's hand did not slacken. And then Avizina realized the problem. "You don't like being on your back, do you?"

Reluctantly, Stephanos tilted his head in acquiescence. "It isn't you," he said, pained. "It is only that it is too much like losing, and I am too helpless, and even for this I-- I cannot--"

"Shh," Avizina said, and he sat back so Stephanos had room to roll over again. "I do not blame you. Is it better this way? Or do you want to stand, and I can kneel?"

Stephanos was on his side now in the soft grass, head propped up on his elbow. He was still long, stretched out, and his unbound tail spread pale across the new green shoots of spring grass. He was beautiful, a force of nature here beneath Avizina's hands. "Yes, this is nice, but now what--?"

Avizina nudged at Stephanos' hind leg, and obligingly Stephanos slid his leg backwards, exposing again the hard hot length of him. "Now this," he said, and he reached for him.

At his first tentative brush of fingers Stephanos moaned and pushed up into his hand, and answering lust sparked hot in Avizina; he thought he might come just from touching him, and it took him a few breaths to get himself under control again.

Of course Stephanos' cock was so huge that it took both hands for him to be able to fully wrap his fingers around it, and he was awkward at first with the size of it, but at the same time it was obvious that even this was more that Stephanos had ever dreamed of, and everything he had given up dreaming for. When Avizina looked up from the slow slide of Stephanos' cock through his hands, he saw that Stephanos' arms were splayed out in the dirt, face half-pressed against the earth, hair gleaming gold in the sun, and he was gasping and smiling and smiling.

"I'm not going to last," Stephanos said, and the last word came out of him in a moan as Avizina palmed up over the tip of his cock, pressing harder. "I-- oh--"

"It's all right," Avizina told him. "There will be other times."

Stephanos' voice was all air, a breathless gasp. "Will there?"

"Would you like me to tell you about them?" Avizina countered, and he let the fantasies unfurl in his mind. "There's the one where -- mmm -- the one where I kiss you, just there, where my hands are." Stephanos made an astonishing whimpering noise at that; one of his hooves raked the ground again as he attempted to shove himself harder into Avizina's tight grip. "And of course there's you fucking me." Stephanos whimpered again and Avizina tightened his grasp yet again, feeling the slide of Stephanos' cock against his palms. "I've always liked them big, you see; I think you're big enough. And I would stretch around you and feel you, everywhere, and you'd absolutely love it--"

"Avizina," Stephanos said, brokenly, and he shut his eyes and came, trembling, hot and hard over Avizina's hands, his arms, O gods, everywhere.

When the last of the tremors left him he opened his eyes, blinked once, smiled a huge, sated smile, and reached down along the length of himself to pull Avizina up.

"Was that well?" Avizina asked, and Stephanos laughed in reply. "Here, you don't want to touch me; I'm a mess."

"It's my mess," Stephanos said, possessive and pleasure-fogged, and then he was kissing Avizina with huge heavy kisses, making everything bright and hot, and Avizina was gasping. "Besides, you think I don't want to give you the same pleasure?" He kissed him again, again. "Tell me what you like and I will do it."

"It won't take much," Avizina said against Stephanos' lips; his voice was wrecked, a low dark moan. His cock throbbed between his legs; a touch would bring him to his release. "I just-- please, let me--"

He shifted positions, approaching the way he had balanced himself when they had kissed for the first time; he got one leg, and then the other, over Stephanos' furred shoulder, onto his withers, legs around Stephanos' hips. He was wrapped around him, his cock trapped between his own body and Stephanos', rubbing up against warm, sleek golden hide, sliding over skin; both felt wonderful.

"Can I?" he gasped, and the need rose within him, frantic, urgent. "Can I please?"

Stephanos only smiled and kissed him again, and then slid one hand down Avizina's back, and then lower, and that was it, he was coming, spending himself against Stephanos' hide.

Sweaty, trembling, he laid his head upon Stephanos' shoulder. "You're going to kill me," Avizina said, laughing, a little muzzy. "But it will be worth it."

"I shall not," Stephanos said, and his voice was serious. "I shall not, because the gods would not deprive you of me, or me of you; they cannot mean to give us each other and keep you mortal."

"They will grant you such a boon?"

"They will," Stephanos said, and then the sternness faded and he ran a finger over Avizina's jaw. "For you. I have given them enough. I think I am owed it."

He was struck speechless by the certainty in Stephanos' voice -- and the love and affection.

Stephanos kissed him again. "Come. To the river to wash, then you eat your half of the bread, then we head north again."

Avizina pictured long hours on Stephanos' back, feeling him move under him, beneath his thighs, and he grinned. "I am certain to enjoy the ride."


End file.
